Climate Impact Group Meeting 21st May

Attendees

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Apologies

Dave Watkins | Cornwall Council

Tom Dauben| Environment Agency
Laurence Couldrick | Westcountry Rivers Trust
Sara Gibbs | Public Health England
Robert Scarrott | South West Water

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1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

These were accepted as a true record.

Actions carried over from the previous minutes:

ACTION: Helen Dobby to draft a letter to the District Councils and Unitary Authorities to ask for their involvement in developing the Adaptation Plan.

ACTION: Dave Watkins to share more about learnings from the Parr adaptation strategy development.

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2. Resourcing update

Doug Eltham updated the group that himself and Emily Reed have met with Tom Dauben to explore options for funding applications to increase the resource of the Climate Impacts Group. They decided to put a bid in to the Flood Defence Grant in Aid Fund for a six-month contract, or secondment, to progress the work of the group towards a draft Adaptation Plan for public consultation. Tom is putting together a side of A4. The bid would be submitted via Devon County Council, Martin Hutchings has confirmed he is happy with this.

Doug is still arranging for an intern with a task and finish remit to add resource to the group for a few weeks.

Harriet Googe highlighted that there are four flood defence trainees that could help with logistics for planning upcoming workshops.

ACTION: Emily to contact Harriet to discuss how the flood defence trainees might be able to help.

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3. Progress made on:

a. Review of National Risks added to the local register

Emily updated the group that she had been in touch with Saska McGrath, NEP and Climate Change Manager, South West Water. Saska will review the water related impacts in the coming weeks and expressed an interest in attending future meetings of the group. Emily also highlighted that Elliot Batty would be able to review the impacts further after the G7 meeting has passed.

Helen added that an additional member of Public Health England, Michael Allum, has been in touch wishing to join the group as he is looking into extreme events and climate impacts in the South-West.

ACTION: Emily to add Michael Allum to the distribution list for the Climate Impacts Group.

b. Confirming lead strategic-level actor and assessors

Emily reported that for some impacts further detail still needs to be added to the spreadsheet.

ACTION: Please add any additional lead strategic-level actors relevant to the management of the risks which you are aware of in column G.

c. Identifying additional stakeholders

Emily reported that for some impacts further detail still needs to be added to the spreadsheet.

ACTION: Please add any additional stakeholders relevant to the management of the risks which you are aware of in column I.

d. Identifying existing controls and reporting mechanisms

Emily reported that for some impacts further detail still needs to be added to the spreadsheet.

ACTION: Please add any additional existing controls and reporting mechanism for the risks listed which you are aware of in column J and K. It was decided that once further resource for the group is secured, the remaining gaps in the draft risk register could be confirmed verbally by partners e.g. over the phone and documented on the spreadsheet by the additional staff resource.

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4. Next steps

a. Engaging stakeholders to understand their baseline preparedness

Emily introduced the options paper which was circulated prior to the meeting.

Doug stated that it was important to finish completing the risk register spreadsheet first with the controls and reporting mechanisms prior to engaging additional stakeholders.

It was AGREED that the next step would be to hold a series of separate smaller theme-based meetings with additional stakeholders to assess baseline preparedness for the impacts (e.g. natural environment, public health, flooding etc.). This could be combined with surveys during the sessions if helpful, e.g. using slido. This should be arranged for September once further resource is in place.

ACTION: Decide who will lead each theme meeting.

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5. Categorising impacts according to preparedness

Emily introduced the Urgency Categories used by the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment to categorise the impacts: More action needed, Research Priority, Sustain Current Action and Watching Brief. She proposed that the Climate Impacts Group uses the same classifications to categorise the locally identified impacts.

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